Tuesday, June 30, 2015

I asked the earth; and it answered, “I am not He;” and whatsoever are therein made the same confession.

I asked the sea and the deeps, and the creeping things that lived, and they replied, “We are not thy God, seek higher than we.” …

I asked the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars: “Neither,” say they, “are we the God whom thou seekest.”

And I answered unto all these things which stand about the door of my flesh, “Ye have told me concerning my God, that ye are not He; tell me something about Him.” And with a loud voice they exclaimed, “He made us.” …

I asked the vast bulk of the earth of my God, and it answered me, “I am not He, but He made me.”

As I walked slowly saying the Rosary four Bishops came by. I called to them: "Fathers, do you know where you stand?"

They stopped and let me explain that they were at Ground Zero - the killing field where martyrs were made. I told them it was illegal for them to pray at that spot or anywhere within 150 metres, but Catholics MUST make a stand.

Some may know that back in the day when I was a King, I had a wound. It was a particularly nasty one which would not heal and, yes, it was from a mishap that was all my own Fault. Mea Culpa.Often I would wish my Knights would simply despatch me. But kindness flowed from them.

There were things - quite Kingly things - that I could not do. Like my toenail management. Daggers are damned useful things in the hands of the more youthful.

I was reminded of this the other day. While the general hubbub was about communist Popes and Gay buggers getting married, I happened to notice a chap in one corner, on his knees beneath a table, around which sat some old guys. "Hello", thought I, "what have we there?" I confess it did cross my mind that he might be doing something untoward. Most unkind of me. But thankfully I was wrong. (That's the second time this year I have been wrong and its is only June !)It was Scott Stanley. I asked him what he was up to.

I am not at a stage of life where I need help doing my own toenails. Barring unforeseen circumstances, I’m expecting to be my own mani/pedi provider for a good two decades or more, but you never know how life will turn out. I am, however, in that sandwich generation. Or I was.

Since my father passed on a few years ago and my mother passed on a year and a half ago, the sandwich is somewhat more like open-faced tuna melt than a club. I have two emerging adult sons in the home and I have two brothers beyond it. One of those two brothers has had serious health needs of late, and that inspired this piece.

Here’s something they never tell you when you are a kid:

One day you may end up clipping and filing the toenails of those you love.

Earlier in life, I could not have imagined that, at some point, I would clip my father’s toenails, my mother’s toenails, and my brother’s toenails. I am cured (pedi, in fact) of my naïve beliefs. Sure, my wife and I trimmed our sons’ nails when they were little. We are good parents! Besides, if you’ve had a baby, you know those baby nails can be wicked sharp. Trimming them is simple self-preservation.

But that was long ago—before the one son started using clippers on his own and the other son started trimming his own toenails with his teeth (he was really flexible back then).

In recent months, one of my brothers has had serious health issues and he’s been unable to trim his own toenails. That’s how I came to do it. Twice.

I never, ever, thought I’d be doing that, but there I was, clipping, filing, and buffing. No polish, though. Shiny was not our goal. Besides, in our family, we don’t get fancy.

Years ago, my parents lived in a retirement home. For a while there was someone who provided this service for them but something interrupted that for a time. That’s how I came to trim the toenails of my parents a time or two.

You may be thinking, “That’s no big deal, Scott, let me tell you what I’ve had to do for a family member.” Indeed, this is a small thing. Ten small things at a time, in fact. Some of you are real family heroes, doing incredible things, year in and year out, for a loved one. I claim no contest.

Still, toenails are a metaphor for the whole range of little things that many of us will need help with at some point, for a season or for the rest of our lives.

Toenails and the Future of Families

This all got me thinking about the future of families and about toenails. A stretch, you say? I think it’s all related.

One day, when visiting a loved one in a nursing home, I asked a nurse about toenails. I wondered how people who could no longer trim their own got it done.

She told me that in this particular place, and I suspect it’s far from the only one, staff were not allowed to do the toenails of patients. Liability. So some people needed to have an outpatient visit to a podiatrist to have their toenails trimmed. Think about that a moment.

The cost. The hassle.

I got to wondering if it’s a reimbursable medical expense to have a podiatrist do your toenails.

I think a growing number of people are going to have only one of two options for their toenails: Howard Hughes mode or services provided by a family member or friend. Sure, the government has programs for many things, but I’m not sure there’s one coming for toenails.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Maybe it is the ABC we deserve, so long have we let the wreckers keep their positions, but it is certainly not my ABC. I was as thoroughly disgusted by the antics this week as half the population were. The other half, of course, do not come to the Tavern, knowing they will meet the Bouncer.Let me remind you: The Q&A program, supposedly a social/political forum format with a panel of 'well known' heads and an audience that is chosen to be 'fairly balanced' - chosen by the ABC that is - discuss matters of moment. It is 'well known' by now that balance is totally missing.

Q&A has a doozy of a 'carpet-pisser' in their Q&A audience but was oblivious to its own offence. Perhaps they were not looking for him particularly. They usually choose such people for the panel. Waleed Ali - one of the many 'usual suspects' - can be relied upon for that role representing the Islamist, terrorist apologists and encouragers,

and an entire conga-line of suckholes (to use Paul Keating's diatribe description) from the left can be called upon to sit and abuse one, lonely centre-right person.But they sat a convicted terrorist in the audience this time and let him have his say. Then they ran a repeat two days later while the nation was till coughing and spluttering. To put it in colloquial terms: The shit hit the fan.The ABC of course, refuses even to sniff the air, and to be fair to them it cannot do that readily when it's head is shoved firmly up its arse.So it has been taken to task. Not just by the PM who has called for an enquiry, but by the hoi-poloi. Two were in the bar. Jennifer Oriel and Steve Kates. Both were fuming.Jennifer had plenty to say, taking a favourite shibboleth of the left and shoving it right up there in the darkness with the ABC head: (Jennifer was 'paywalled' so JJ Ray brought her in). It was an indulgence to let her hold the attention as she sometimes starts to squat and I take care of my carpets. I hope she thanks me. So, linking her favourite rumble to this thunder.....

Jihadis and leftists, united in misogyny

I was invited to appear as a panellist on the ABC’s political talk show Q&A this month.

This week, Q&A featured a self-described Muslim activist who tweeted about gang-raping female columnists in January and pleaded guilty to threatening to kill an ASIO officer.

Why would I want to appear on Q&A following such an outrage against women and our nation’s protective forces?

The man who tweeted the idea of gang-raping female journalists also has expressed support for an Islamic caliphate. I consider him such an inferior example of manhood that I would prefer not to stain the page with his name, but here it is for the record: Zaky Mallah.

After hearing the standard Islamist narrative on the ABC — that is, Islamists charged with threatening violence are victims of government action to stop terrorism — Q&A’s audience applauded Mallah.

That tells us a lot about the state of left-wing politics today.

In the 21st century, the hard Left goes soft on men who attack liberal democracy and promote violence against women as long as such men belong to a Left-anointed minority.

Oh? Care to name one, Jennifer. A man who promotes violence against women? One who is not, say, an islamist. One from the so many you say are out there?

Q&A host Tony Jones upbraided Mallah,

but only after he had blamed the government for jihadism.

And Tuesday’s limp corrective by the ABC falls well short of the explanation we need and the apology Australians deserve.

The terms of reference for the investigation into the ABC’s indulgence of Mallah must include why a man who threatened to kill an ASIO official was cast as a victim while criticising our liberal democratic government’s anti-terrorism policy.

The omission that Mallah threatened lethal violence against a member our security forces and sexual violence against female intellectuals demonstrates more than mere oversight by the ABC. Australia’s public broadcaster has put Australian citizens in harm’s way.

What might have happened, for example, if either of the two female columnists Mallah proposed should be gang-raped in January were on the Q&A panel this week?

Unlike those female columnists, I was actually invited to be on a Q&A panel this month. I have written extensively on Islamist terrorism and have been threatened for doing so.

The thought that a man such as Mallah might have been sitting a few feet away from me on Q&A is, quite frankly, horrifying.

No woman should have to fear for her bodily safety in Australia when she exercises her democratic right to free speech — especially on our public broadcaster. And yet, that is precisely what I now feel about the prospect of appearing on Q&A.

Er.... No man either. Be nice, now, Jennifer.

There are serious questions which must be answered about the modern Left and its indulgence of Islamist terrorism and misogyny. We might begin by asking why the taxpayer-funded ABC indulged a man who promoted the idea of gang-raping female columnists.

Is it because the targeted columnists, Miranda Devine and Rita Panahi, are viewed as politically conservative and therefore deserved victims by Islamists and their left-wing allies in the West? Does the Left believe dissident women are asking for it?

We are bearing witness this week to a new form of political correctness — politically correct misogyny — where leftists and Islamists converge to shut dissident women out of public debate.

Author and human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali

has suffered the brunt of PC misogyny during the past decade following her trenchant criticism of Islamist ¬violence against women and girls.

In his book The Flight of the Intellectuals, Paul Berman chronicled the rise of the new sexism crafted by left-wing men against Hirsi Ali.

Hmmmm. Left wing women too. Feminists hate her with their usual vengance. There can be a little too much emphasis going on here, Jennifer. Keep it balanced and stay upright.

Using sleazy sophistry to conceal their contempt for the woman who dared to refuse victim status and became instead a champion of the free world, PC misogynists claimed she only made it because she was attractive.

In the US as in Australia, the sneering disdain some left-wing men reserve for dissident women is becoming more overtly misogynistic and it seems to increase in direct proportion to dissidents’ public success.

After Hirsi Ali received a standing ovation at the American Atheists convention, left-wing activist journalist Sam Hamad described her as: “a perfect little brown-skinned conduit” for the views of “white males”.

One would have thought that describing a woman with African descent as a “little brown-skinned conduit” should provoke public furore. But there was no cry of hate speech from the progressivist media, no call of sexism from the ivory towers.

Instead, the girl who survived female genital mutilation in Africa, assassination attempts in Europe and jihadist threats in America has grown to become a trending target of hard Left hate because by daring to live and tell the tale, Hirsi Ali has exposed their PC misogyny.

While Mallah might lack the hard Left’s talent for sophistry, his effect is just as devastating. On social media, he described columnists Panahi and Devine as “whores” and proposed that they be gang-raped on television.

That is hard to write. No woman should have to read it.

Men neither, m'dear. PLEASE get that.

It is little surprise to find support for misogyny among men who enthuse about an Islamist caliphate, where the unequal status of women and girls is enshrined as a rule of law and a cultural right.

But it should be a surprise to find self-declared progressives of the Western Left endorsing Islamist misogyny against any woman, let alone parading its advocates as paragons of sound citizenship.

In its response to the public furore about Mallah on Q&A, the ABC acknowledged his tweet about female columnists — in a single sentence of the last line of the final paragraph. The message could not be clearer.

As a female political commentator who leans conservative, my right to free speech and bodily safety may not mean much to the ABC. But I did not spend my formative years fighting for women’s rights in the 20th century only to submit to an Islamist-Left alliance of misogyny in the 21st.

I expect a public apology from the ABC for its outrage against women, female columnists and the basic security of Australians.

Until such an apology is given, I will not consent to appear on Q&A

She will wait a long time, I expect, although I would be pleased to see her storm the studio. Perhaps she can go in the audience. She would no doubt be on the panel as 'duty feminist' anti-male, head banger anyway.Meanwhile Dr.Steve, in the Cat corner gave an uppercut to the Chairman of the ABC, who is a vacant fellow devoid of sense or sensitivity. I doubt he will feel it on his chin unless Steve punches right up the ABC rectum.

What an insufferable hypocrite

It really is hard to credit such lack of judgement, but there you are. Now Mark Scott himself has gotten into it. From The Australian:

“As someone said to me this week, free-speech arguments would be easier if you were always defending Martin Luther King,” Mr Scott said at a Centre for Corporate Public Affairs’ function. “At times, free-speech principles mean giving platforms to those with whom we fundamentally disagree.

That is exactly the point, but it is precisely what you and the ABC never do.

Is he really that dense?

Does he honestly not see what the rest of us are saying. It is that the ABC does not give platforms to those with whom they fundamentally disagree, unless they first stack the deck.

The entire explosion over Zaki was that this was the typical ABC approach. Yes, see, we have the Minister whose views we fundamentally disagree with and have provided him with a platform. But of course, we then try to expose him to our own hit job, in a way that would never ever happen if he were someone from the left, or even better from the Greens.

It is insulting and disgusting to have to listen to such shallow reasoning. This is now the Thursday after the Monday and is this really the best Scott can do? Because you didn’t give Zaki a “platform”. You gave him an opportunity to sandbag a government minister, which you were hoping he would do. He was not there because anyone cared about his opinions.

The political side of the ABC is a wasteland of vacuity. It is an empty shell of green-left ignorance and the greenest and most left of them all appears to be its CEO. But the most disgusting part is this, from the opening para of the article:

ABC managing director Mark Scott has compared extremist Zaky Mallah’s right to appear on Q&A with the campaign for free speech that flowed from the jihadist murder of 12 journalists from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

To even mention Charlie Hebdo in such circumstance is beyond maddening. If I follow this analogy right, Zaki, according to Scott, is like those poor journalists who were murdered by jihadi gunmen, in that he is being deprived of his right to free speech (really, how? when? where?). And the jihadi murderers at Charlie Hebdo are likened to the people who object to Zaki, a former jihadist himself, being brought in to confront a government Minister on national television.

This is so warped that really, it is time for the board at the ABC to ask for Scott’s resignation and set the Corporation off in a new direction.

He is a mouthpiece for the left and is too blinded by his prejudices to understand what he is saying and why what the ABC did was so fundamentally wrong.

OK, so I have a Bouncer yet I am firmly FOR free speech. I am in part quite glad that the little shyte had some exposure on the ABC. We need to know the measure of men - and women. By their fruits we shall know them.But I do expect the famed yet invisible as yet 'Balance' claimed by the ABC to make an appearance one day. That'll be the day.Pax(to those who earn it)

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Tavern Keeping is not that hard. I quite like it. I am a hermit too. That's a tough job, but heck, someone has to do it.But there are jobs which are really hard and impose on a chap. I like to ponder them from time to time.There is now't like seeing chaps work. Especially when you can sit out on the patio on a sharp, bright, clear day with a fine bevvie at hand.Take the TV Presenter's job, for instance.

6 feet agl. If the prop missed there was always the wing ! I am reminded of the tragic pass in "Catch 22" where poor old Doc Daneka had to be declared dead even though he wasn't, all because the plane he was 'officially' on - so he could get the flying pay to send home to his wife - flew low over a beach and cut a chap to bits and the pilot then decided to crash it to avoid a Court Martial.Yep, life is tough.But we move on.Get a gaggle of them together. Pilots in old planes that is. Throw in some well planted trees in the window and.....

That's the Breitling boys for you. When you make and sell watches for a couple of grand a pop, you need something to spend the profits on. And who else is going to maintain heritage aircraft? They have a private Air Force complete with modern military jets. But before we get to the main event, let's look at a couple of Red Bull's best. They say Red Bull gives you wings. I'm not sure about that but Red Bull certainly has wings. It has its own Air Force too. It will be a warm-up for the spectacle in a few minutes.

So, what else can be done that has never been done before? The ultimate challenge. Forget James Bond and his gyrocopter through the hangar. Let's see TWO proper planes in formation through the hangar.

They will need a drink after that. Let us finish by taking a quick look at that Breitling mob in their modern jets.

As they say its a tough life flying those jets all over the world, entertaining people and seeing exotic places.I will man the pumps.Pax.

Monday, June 22, 2015

We need, from time to time, to have a lesson. We ignore most that come along until they bite us on the arse like an angry dog.

We have progressed far as a species, but the 'drive' that we had early on is still alive and well. If we can find it.

Take this young fellow who dropped by for a pint before going back to his new home.

He did not do it to impress. He did not do it for praise. He was simply 'undistracted'. He did what is within any man to do.

This sort of chap took us out of the caves. His sort has made a modern world where we are sheltered from the storms. Civilisation. We have had the benefit of men like this for thousands, tens of thousands of years.But, have we really progressed ?We do most everything at the beck and call of others. We make the world, but do we do a good job? Have we done a good job?

Look around.

What are we doing?

We often think of Greece as being the cradle of civilisation. They constructed some phenomenal buildings. They started 'democracy' there. And philosophy. They also had to survive in a harsh world and only the fittest were permitted to survive. They inspected babies at birth and even the slightest hint of weakness resulted in death. Exposure on the mountain.Now we do not even wait for an inspection. The future strong are condemned with the weak, at whim. Democraticly, of course. At the beck and call of others.Are we doing a good job?What Hell are YOU building.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

It would be presumptuous and previous of me to let anyone in the Tavern get away with discussing the Pope's Encyclical on Climate Change. I would have to point out that he has not sent owt out yet.From what I have heard from some mutterings and guffaws it will be a doozy that may even rise to the challenge of the 'Galileo Trial incident' which has fueled centuries of guffaws. A New Record may be in the offing.

Did you hear the one about......

So, for instance, Sam Guzman, a fine Catholic Gentleman, started off yesterday....

A FEW THOUGHTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT

Both secular environmentalists and Catholics are waiting with bated breath for the release of Pope Francis’ new encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si. Many Catholics are deeply worried that the pope will play into the agenda of radical environmentalists, while many secularists are thrilled that the pope will seemingly endorse their worldview.

I haven’t read the Holy Father’s encyclical yet (yes, it was leaked, but I don’t read Italian), so I don’t have anything to say about it—but I do have a few thoughts about our relation to the natural world, as it is a topic I have thought about quite a bit. I’m going to wade into controversial waters today and share them with you. Here they are in no particular order.

It doesn't matter !

OK, he did have more to say, and a sound person, a Christian and a Catholic can have their say on environmental matters just like anyone else, but..... you can read more, where he makes his usual sound points, here.....

Popes, frankly, in an 'umble Tavern Keepers view, should stick to doctrines of old and not go along with turning modernist, socialist, One World Order clap-trap into Holy Writ.So instead we had the splendid fellow Mark Steyn say a few words on 'associated' matters with which he is far more familiar. That being his own legal stoush with Dr (Nobel Prozac recipient) Michael Mann.Mark, was as usual very entertaining in the Canada Room.I shall leave you in his fine, page-turning hands.

I hope any questions that you might have had in mind were answered.And we can look forward to the Pope's views when they eventually arrive.

I might just get back to those on another day when the fog clears.Pax.

Sunday, June 14, 2015

I have a bit of a problem with 'Social Justice', and it seems that quite a few of the customers in the Tavern do too. How does 'Social Justice' differ from 'Justice'?Is it different better? Or different worse?Some discussion gave some clarity and answers.Should we be having many other justices too? Is there a 'non-social' justice? A justice that has nothing whatsoever to do with people? One confined to fish, for example. We didn't get around to those by closing time. Perhaps another day.Wherever one goes, even in the Christian world, one keeps stumbling over this term and its associated practices. It has infected the Catholic Church no less than many other areas of life and Institutions. And I do not like it one little bit.Just listen to this. A chap at the bar read it out to me:

The Australian Catholic Social Justice Council (ACSJC) was set up by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) in 1987 as the national justice and peace agency of the Catholic Church in Australia.

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference mandates the ACSJC to promote research, education, advocacy and action on social justice, peace and human rights, integrating them deeply into the life of the whole Catholic community in Australia, and providing a credible Catholic voice on these matters in Australian society.

In this way the ACSJC seeks to bring good news to the poor, release to captives, sight to the blind and freedom to the oppressed. The ACSJC is accountable to the ACBC through the Bishops Commission for Justice, Ecology and Development.

Ahha. The 'Oppressed'.These Bishops are fine fellows all. But........Rarely does one get three whole paragraphs of weasel-words together.

Did you hear Jesus saying any of that? I do reall something about "I bring a sword". A sword is needed here just to cut through the mendacious clap-trap. It is a small step, oft taken, to the focus being put on the supposedly patriarchal, racist, homophobic world inflicted on women and 'people of colour'. Oh how 'Oppressed'.The Church in Oz is currently right in there railing about 'violence against women', while totally ignoring both the tiny proportion of such violence in the population (5% ?) and the just about equal amount of violence against men.

Jesus on the Cross would not be seen at all if there was a woman in a spat with her husband on the lower slopes of Golgatha.

We shall see where weasel words beget more weasel words and ones that evolve into wolf words and sabretooth tiger words. They turn on you and devour you. The Rabbit-Hole world of Alice in Wonderland was a blood-thirsty place.

The Word that Chist asked us to spread, gets swamped, diverted, 'marginalised' even !.

We all want to see Justice. We all agree with the concept of Justice. And a clear concept it is. It is straightforward but continually gets mangled by increasingly divisive other ideas. 'Divisive' itself is one of those ideas that mangle. One the one hand anything 'divisive' is seen as a 'bad' by the Social Justice Warriors, yet it is used by the same SJWs to divide and destroy. It is a 'Political Correctness' term.

Justice does not need an adjective before it.

Or after. Or around.Zozchial Juztitz on the other hand comes replete wih all the baggage of socialism, marxism, envy, and hatred.It has NO Place in Christian thought or legislative practice.It has not only taken over entire fields and meadows of the Church but has become a religion in and of and for itself. No-one is safe from the ire of SJWs. Even SJWs themselves are not safe. They are just like the early, mid and later Marxists, intent on 'purges' of their predecessors.The Sherwood Family were in and saying just that. They seemed to know what they were talking about as I overheard.

“Social Justice” is a religion.

It has saints, dogma, and sacraments. It also has backsliders and apostates. As any religion knows, apostates must be dealt with lest they lead the rest of the flock astray. So any expression that shows them to be in any way rejecting the creeds of Social Justice must be met with a inquisitorial zeal.

They must be made to recant…not just for the safety of the flock but for the good of their own souls. If they, like the proverbial village in Vietnam, have to be destroyed in order to be saved…well…so be it.

They? That does not include me and the Tavern customers being talked about. And very likely not you too. We are the targets of the original 'direct action', not the also-rans who have to be purged by the next lot on the hierarchy ladder of lefty lunacy.

The interesting thing is that positions that were blessed by the SJWs in the past become rapidly outmoded and outdated and thus…incorrect. Evolve too slowly and one is a throwback reactionary who does not believe in progress, despite the fact that one’s views may be utterly in harmony with the doctrine of the church of Social Justice from only a few years ago.

SJWs cannot evolve too quickly either. That risks alienating the mass of SJWs who are not yet ready for more advanced views. But they do have a vanguard group who agitatesfor the more extreme positions, knowing that a slightly less extreme compromise will lead the faithful by the nose to the positions staked out by the vanguard over time.

Four decades ago it was decriminalizing homosexuality and legalizing abortion. Suggesting homosexuals should have the ability to marry and adopt would have been unacceptable except among a small group. And pushing for things like partial birth abortion would not even have been mentioned because it would have been too barbarous to be considered.

Today, subscribing to these views is a requirement,a holy crusade for equality. Denying these “rights” today is sin. And the SJW church will require one to immediately confess their sin and be forced to undergo a struggle session to get their mind right.

But the interesting thing to watch is the avant-garde views that are slowly assimilated by the mass and made mainstream. What are the avant-garde views today? Where, in other words, are the SJWs headed?

This seems to me one of the reasons that aging liberals often wake up and begin adopting more moderate and in some cases even conservative views…because they were comfortable with progress up to a point but the movement has gone beyond their arbitrarily chosen boundaries and they too suddenly find themselves athwart history yelling stop.

It is also one of the reasons why the “former liberal conversos” are extremely dubious, in my opinion. They often fail to acknowledge that it was their own efforts to promote “progress” in the first place that has landed all of us where we are now.

There is no compromise with progressivism and trying to stop it at some line drawn in the sand is a fool’s errand.

Trying to hold them at bay cedes momentum to the progressives. Only a concerted campaign to destroy progressives root and branch by forcing the march of history in the other direction will ever have an effect.

Don’t want to be forced to support and defend homosexual marriage? Then arguing for a live and let live approach is stupid. Homosexuals certainly aren’t content with that.

Only forcing the issue the other direction offers hope.

Don’t want to be forced to have your tax money pay for contraception and abortions on demand? Then stop tolerating the existence of abortion which makes that the likeliest outcome over time.

In short, the only solution is to crush the SJWs. Remember…nits make lice. Extirpate them early and often.

I am inclined to agree. Being a Warrior of the old school who was content to plant and harvest and mend the harnesses. Such folk as I prefer to live rather than simply fight; and so when a fight comes along that cannot be avoided by diplomacy or chivalry, you have to go in hard and destroy your enemy so you can get back to daily living and serving God's Good Grace.

Evil cannot be diplomatically 'managed'. It will destroy you unless you stop it dead.

A Church and a Tavern and indeed any person is known by the company they keep. Let us have a look at a few Zozchial Juztitz Warriors and where their zeal leads. We dealt with a few such people the other day when looking at those Robber Barons of the Charity Industry. Cathy Young did some of the honours for us.

The Pecking Disorder: Social Justice Warriors Gone Wild

The ordeal of Northwestern University film professor Laura Kipnis, hauled before a campus gender equity tribunal for publishing a critique of academia’s current obsession with sexual misconduct, has brought the backlash against “political correctness” to reliably left-of-center venues such as Vox. But this is only the latest incident in the culture wars over “social justice” that have been wreaking havoc in a wide range of communities—including, but not limited to, universities, the literary world, science fiction fandom and (even) the atheist/skeptic movement.

The progressive crusaders driving these wars have been dubbed “social justice warriors,” or “SJWs,” by their Internet foes. Some activists on the left proudly embrace the label, crowing that it says a lot about the other side that it uses “social justice” as a derisive epithet.

But in fact, this version of “social justice” is not about social justice at all.

It is a cultish, essentially totalitarian ideology deeply inimical—as liberals such as Jonathan Chaitwarn in New York Magazine—to the traditional values of the liberal left, and not just because of the movement’s hostility to freedom of “harmful” speech.

At the core of social justice dogma is fixation on identity and “privilege.”

In Church terms, this is 'the poor'. Many churchmen and lay parishioners are prey to twisted words.

Some of this discourse touches on real and clear inequities: for instance, the widespread tendency of police and others to treat African-Americans, especially young and male, as potential lawbreakers. Yet even here, the rhetoric of privilege generates far more heat than light.

Not to mention a different sort of Light that Jesus had in mind. This is more like Lucifer's.

University of California-Merced sociologist Tanya Bolash-Goza, who accepts the social justice left’s view of pervasive structural racism in America, points out that the term “white privilege” turns what should be the norm for all—not being harassed by cops or eyed suspiciously by shop owners—into a special advantage unfairly enjoyed by whites. (Indeed, in its dictionary meaning, “privilege” refers to rights or benefits possessed by the select, not by the majority.)

This language speaks not to black betterment but to white guilt. It also erases the fact that the “privilege” extends to many non-white groups, such as Asians.

Er.... as I said, it is Divisive.

Privilege rhetoric offers an absurdly simplistic view of complex social dynamics. A widely cited essay by pro-“social justice” sci-fi writer John Scalzi seeks to explain privilege to geeks by arguing that being a straight white male is akin to playing a videogame on “the lowest difficulty setting.” Does the white son of a poor single mother have it easier than the daughter of a wealthy black couple? As a minor afterthought, Scalzi mentions that “players” in other groups may be better off if they start with more “points” in areas such as wealth.

But generally, the “social justice” left strenuously avoids the issue of socioeconomic background, which, despite upward mobility, is surely the most tangible and entrenched form of actual privilege in modern American society. Rather, the focus is on racial, sexual, and cultural identities.

While social justice discourse embraces “intersectionality”—the understanding that different forms of social advantage and disadvantage interact with each other—this virtually never works in favor of the “privileged.”

Thus, intersectionality may mean recognizing that disabled battered women suffer from both sexism and “ableism.”

Recognizing that disabled men may be at greater risk for spousal abuse because disability reverses the usual male advantage in strength? Not so much.

To acknowledge advantages enjoyed by the “oppressed”—for instance, gender bias favoring female defendants in criminal cases or mothers in custody suits—is pure heresy. The only moral dilemma is which oppressed identity trumps which: race or gender, sexuality or religion.

This hierarchy of identity politics can lead to some bizarre inversions of progressive values.

Thus, because Muslims are classified as “marginalized” and “non-privileged” in the West’s power structures, critics of misogyny and homophobia in fundamentalist Islam risk being chastised for “Islamophobic” prejudice.

Charlie Hebdo, the staunchly left-wing French magazine murderously attacked in January in retaliation for its Mohammed cartoons, was denounced by a number of leftist critics who felt that the magazine’s satirical barbs at Islam (along with other organized religions) amounted to “punching down” at the powerless. The men with guns who shot twelve Charliestaffers were presumably punching up.

On the other hand, since Jews in Western society today are seen as more privileged than not, social justice discourse sheepishly sidesteps anti-Semitism—surely one of the most pernicious forms of bigotry in Western history.

Salon, more or less the Pravda of today’s social justice left,recently ran a piece arguing that the coming reboot of the X-Men franchise should reinvent its character Magneto, a Jewish Auschwitz survivor, as black in order to “get real about race.”

The practical effects of such “social justice” ideology be seen in the communities where it flourishes (mainly on college campuses and online).

It is a reverse caste system in which a person’s status and worth depends entirely on their perceived oppression and disadvantage.

Nuances of rank can be as rigid as in the most oppressively hierarchical traditional society. A white woman upset by an insulting comment from a white man qualifies for sympathy and support; a white woman distraught at being ripped to shreds by a “woman of color” for an apparent racial faux pas can be ridiculed for “white girl tears.” However, if she turns out to be a rape victim, the mockery probably crosses a line. On the other hand, a straight white male trashed by an online mob for some vague offenses deemed misogynist and racist can invite more vitriol by revealing that he is a sexual abuse survivor suffering from post-traumatic stress.

Many are the 'Keynote' Warriors. Some are infamous names who are not only feted by the media but employed there. And they are strangely resembling of quite looney people of the past. Many then and now should really be in mental institutions if Churches had any sway in the Compassion biz.Whoops. Churches were there in the background of the closing down of mental institutions. They were 'oppressive' places.Matt Forey had an opinion. I gave him a pint for sheer ascendancy:

5 Modern Day Social Justice Warriors Who Would Have Been Institutionalized In The Past

Are SJWs mentally ill?

Social justice warriors are known for their angry, morally righteous proclamations on the evils of modern society. Prominent SJWs such as Anita Sarkeesian, Laurie Penny and John Scalzi rail against the injustices that our supposedly patriarchal, racist, homophobic world inflicts on women and people of color. However, given how ludicrous and out of touch their ideas are, has anyone wondered if SJWs simply aren’t right in the head?

In the past, anyone who made the kinds of statements spat forth by prominent SJWs would have been condemned to an insane asylum.

Here are five prominent SJWs and how they compare to famous institutionalized writers and ideologues of the past.

1. Jessica Valenti

Best known as the founder of the once-prominent feminist blog Feministing, Jessica Valenti currently works as a staff columnist for The Guardian. Valenti has argued that virginity is a social construct in her book The Purity Myth, declared that women who claim to be rape victims should be automatically believed despite the evidence, and has advocated for rape trials returning to standards of proof that were abandoned in the Middle Ages.

Similar To: Virginia Woolf

A prominent feminist of the early 20th century, Virginia Woolf’s meandering, onanistic fiction was a considerable influence on modernist and postmodernist writers. Her most famous feminist work is the essay “A Room of One’s Own,” which was satirized by the South African poet Roy Campbell in his poem “On the Same”:

Far from the Vulgar haunts of men,

Each sits in her successful room.

Housekeeping with her fountain pen,

and writing novels with her broom.

Woolf suffered from bipolar disorder and was repeatedly institutionalized due to the nervous breakdowns she suffered over the course of her life. Starting with the death of her mother when she was 15, she underwent periodic mental breakdowns that were preceded by violent migraines and insomnia, which left their mark on her writing. Woolf eventually committed suicide by drowning in 1941.

2. Jian Ghomeshi

The former host of CBC Radio’s arts program Q, Jian Ghomeshi is an outspoken feminist who once said that he “believe[d] that the world would be a better place if it were run by women.”

Funny how Feminism is so prevalent in the Zozchial Juztitz field.

Last year, Ghomeshi was fired by CBC Radio after several women came forward with allegations that he beat and raped them. While Ghomeshi attempted to defend himself by claiming that his abuse was actually consensual BDSM, 15 separate women have since claimed that he never once obtained consent from them.

Similar To: The Marquis de Sade

The Marquis de Sade was one of the most prominent writers of the French Revolution; his books on sexual perversion and degeneracy are so legendary that the term “sadism,” the tendency to derive pleasure from inflicting pain on others, takes its name from him. He was also one of the most vehement feminists of his era, seeking to liberate women from patriarchal mores so they could better serve his depraved lusts. Sade spent over 30 years of his life in insane asylums and eventually died in prison after Napoleon ordered his arrest.

3. Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig

A soi-disant Christian socialist and contributor to The New Republic, Stoker Bruenig has a long history of bizarre outbursts. Following the implosion of Rolling Stone’s discredited article “A Rape on Campus,” about a violent gang rape that occurred at the University of Virginia, Stoker Bruenig argued that the reason the piece failed was because “it used rightwing tactics to make a leftist point.” She also accused ROK publisher Roosh Valizadeh of making rape threats against her after he asked his Twitter followers to gauge her attractiveness.

Similar To: Sylvia Plath

A darling of English professors (that is to say Professors of English with large female classes)and anthology editors, Sylvia Plath was a mentally unstable poet who penned doggerel about how her daddy didn’t give her enough hugs when she was growing up. She spent much of her life in mental institutions due to chronic depression; after receiving electroshock therapy in 1953, she attempted suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. Plath would finally succeed in taking her own life in 1963, leaving her husband and children behind.

4. Hugo Schwyzer

For over a decade, Hugo Schwyzer was one of feminism’s most prominent male voices, writing for major publications such as The Atlantic and Jezebel, teaching community college courses on the subject, and even leading L.A.’s SlutWalk in 2011. Schwyzer took extremist stances even by the standards of male feminists, including advocating that men allow their girlfriends to penetrate them with strap-ons, getting circumcised in his mid-30’s as a gift to his then-wife, and claiming that men should not date women younger than themselves.

In 2013, following revelations that he had been cheating on his wife with a porn star, Schwyzer had a widely-publicized mental breakdown and suicide attempt. In a manic, narcissistic Twitter rant, he revealed that he had falsified his credentials as a feminist professor, engaged in affairs with his female students, and more.

This was especially shocking considering that Schwyzer had built his reputation on being a “reformed bad boy,” who used to sleep with his students, abuse drugs and alcohol, and attempted to murder his ex-girlfriend.

Similar To: Bill Wilson

Bill Wilson, aka Bill W., co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935 after being repeatedly institutionalized due to his drinking. His inspiration for founding AA came from a “vision” of God he had while on belladonna, an extremely powerful hallucinogen that was used as a quack cure for alcoholism up until a few decades ago. While never formerly diagnosed, Wilson’s grandiose personality and self-aggrandizing behavior fits the definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Despite being a Christian and a vocal advocate for temperance, Wilson was a serial adulterer known for coercing young women who joined AA into sexual relationships, a practice now known as “13th stepping.” Yet, while he was busy taking advantage of attractive girls who were recovering from alcoholism, Wilson remained unemployed throughout his life and depended on his wife Lois to pay the bills with her day job.

Additionally, despite the purported success of AA in helping drunks sober up, Wilson repeatedly relapsed throughout his life and even begged for whiskey on his deathbed. The inability of the Twelve Steps to cure even the man who thought them up is borne out in AA’s horrifically high failure rates. According to scientific studies, 90 to 95 percent of alcoholics who join AA end up relapsing within six months, and AA may in fact be worse for alcoholics then doing nothing at all.

5. David Futrelle

David Futrelle is a freelance writer from Chicago who has achieved minor notoriety for his anti-anti-feminist blog Manboobz, renamed We Hunted the Mammoth after male feminist Elliot Rodger went on a shooting spree last year. On his blog, Futrelle frequently cherry-picks quotes from trolls in an attempt to smear anti-feminists and MRAs, citing them as examples of what sites like ROK actually advocate.

While Futrelle’s site is frequently mined for reference material by larger publications, he has yet to achieve the big breakthrough he’s been hoping for.

Despite his current advocacy for feminism, Futrelle has a hidden history as a men’s rights sympathizer. A decade ago, he wrote a letter to the Chicago Reader in which he supported the opening of a Borders bookstore in his neighborhood of Andersonville because the only other bookstore was a womens’ one. He also described himself as a “lapsed feminist.”

Similar To: Matt Cvetic

Matt Cvetic was an FBI informant who achieved minor notoriety in the 1940’s after he infiltrated the Communist Party of the USA and wrote about his experiences in the Saturday Evening Post, later testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). His tales of life in the party were dramatized in the radio serial I Was a Communist for the FBI, which was later adapted for film in 1951.

Despite his fame, Cvetic’s testimony was eventually discredited after it was revealed that he was an alcoholic who frequently falsified stories. After being institutionalized due to a nervous breakdown in the late 1950’s, Cvetic died of a drinking-induced heart attack in 1962.

As you can see, the loudest and most prominent SJWs of today exhibit obvious signs of mental illness and substance abuse. While suffering nervous breakdowns or becoming addicted to alcohol don’t inherently make someone evil, those who lack the capacity to manage their own lives have no business telling anyone else how to live theirs.

Social justice warriors’ moral crusades are the by-products of their defective minds.

It is to be noted, as a warning perhaps, that all of these people would be allowed into the Tavern. I would happily pull a pint or pour some spirit for them. Even mix a fine cocktail for Jessica. This Tavern is a place for sinners after all.But the Bouncer would be on hand for quick action and my usual compassion and kindness would be checked by sense and sensitivity. Sinners are fine if their steps are in the right direction.All of these characters though are apt to be incontinent and I do not permit their wee-wees on my carpets.I wish our Churchmen had the same attitude.Pax.

Religion & Peace

King Amfortas

About Me

The Knackered Old Knight, the wounded King. The Keeper-Emeritus of the Grail and now keeper of a Tavern.
I wore Black Armour, not white, although there were quite Kingly gold and silver bits. I still do.
But now I also have rolled-up sleeves and a towel.
I still keep the Faith.
Welcome to my Public House & Fine Dining. Here are to be found food for Soul and drink for the Spirit.
And some Roughage too.
I also contribute as an Author at the 'Nourishing Obscurity' blog;
and as a 'member' at Anti-misandry.com